<a href="mailto:gordandk@aol.com">By GORDIE LITTLE</a>
Small Talk
April 06, 2008 05:39 am
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"Where were you when the lights went out?"
"Down in the cellar eating sauerkraut."
I wish I could trace the origin of that bit of give and take, but the best guesses all seem to come up short.
Some folks attribute it to the aftermath of the great Northeast Blackout of 1965. Some say it comes from a phrase their German ancestors brought to this country, inserting "Fritz" as the person who was in the dark. Others remember it as a childhood rhyme using the name "Moses."
It seems to me that I remember it as being popular many years before the '60s. Kaye didn't recall the sauerkraut ending but added "with a new Boy Scout" in her inimitable good humor.
WARTIME BLACKOUTS
In any case, blackouts were common for many of us who lived through WWII. My dad was an air-raid warden. The curtains were drawn, the lights were extinguished, and he scoured the neighborhood looking for those who ignored the warning to douse all lights.
Our neighborhood butcher in Thornwood was slicing bologna in his shop when the siren wailed one night. His wife was in another room and, without thinking, shut off the lights. Her husband lopped off several fingers on his right hand when the shop was immersed in total darkness. That precipitated more sirens.
During all the years I worked at a Plattsburgh radio station, you could count the extended electrical outages on one hand. That is a tribute to the local municipal power company. We had no backup generators and simply stood by until the transmitter could be fired up again.
One story told by Chet Bosworth about the station owner in the early '50s has to do with such a power disruption. The boss blustered into the control room, spotted Chet simply waiting with nothing to do and blurted out: "Well, don't just sit there. Play records."
He was immediately embarrassed and added, "Never mind."
ALWAYS PREPARED
Following the legendary 1998 Ice Storm in this region, many businesses and homeowners installed generators that could be pressed into service should another outage occur.
I am amazed to find out that many people have brand new generators, in the boxes, empty of oil and fuel that have never been wired up to their homes or even started.
My story in this newspaper about our Genny, the Generator, is well known. It did yeoman duty throughout the community back in '98. Later, our son Bruce found a larger, used generator that I could use to power most of our Morrisonville home.
I fired it up and have done so regularly just to make sure it lives up to the Boy Scout slogan.
It took a few years, but another son, Greg, installed what is called a "transfer switch" beside our electrical entrance box in the cellar. It allows us to use the generator to power half a dozen circuits in the house in case of a blackout.
It is comforting to know that we can remain warm and keep the sump pump humming. Those are major considerations living in this climate and in such close proximity to our beloved river.
FEW LIGHTS OUT
We lucked out this past winter, but at least we're ready. That brings me to "Earth Hour" on Saturday, March 29. It was highly touted, well publicized and was designed to "improve life on earth."
Individuals, businesses and municipalities across the globe were urged to hit the "off" switch on their lights for one hour from 8 to 9 p.m. as a symbol of all of us doing our part to underline the consequences of global warming.
Our favorite British comedies are on public television Saturday nights, so Kaye and I considered it an awesome sacrifice to flip the power switches off. But, in the interest of being good citizens of the earth and so that I could write this column, we did it.
The first thing I did was to grab the cell phone to call our daughter Barbie on Long Island. My fat fingers pushed the "speaker" button, and we had all kinds of echoes on both ends until I could turn on a flashlight and set it straight.
Kia the dog went bananas in the dark and began a desperate attack on my leg with his long claws.
I handed Kaye the phone and walked out to see how many of our Morrisonville neighbors were in the dark. None of them, as far as I could tell.
As a matter of fact, 99 percent of all the people I spoke to about it that night and the next day had never even heard of "Earth Hour." So much for a worthy project started last year by the World Wildlife Federation.
It turned out to be fun for us to sit close and hold hands in the dark, the way we used to do up in the theater balcony eons ago.
Let's hope more people will assume personal responsibility for living greener lives and perhaps we can pay more attention to what Earth Day represents on April 22.
Have a great day and please, drive carefully.
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